This disclosure relates in general to media servers and, but not by way of limitation, to heavily loaded media servers.
Content delivery networks (CDNs) deliver content on the Internet for others. Many different customers can use edge servers of various points of presence (POPs). There can be many thousands of different content objects that an edge server might deliver to requesters over time. Each piece of content is mapped to a location that serve directly or indirectly the content. Overhead for this mapping is not insignificant.
For example, Windows Media Server™ calls a mapping between a request and a serving location a publication point. Beyond a few thousand publication points, Windows Media Server™ has difficulty. Other servers have to trade off what they can track efficiently without overloading other resources CDNs need to potentially map far larger amounts of publication points without sacrificing performance.
CDNs can cache and host content. With a distributed network of high performing POPs, the CDN can deliver content with a quality of service that far exceeds the capability of most content providers. Scalability is built-into the CDN architecture and is a key feature as more computing moves into the cloud. Capabilities of individual media servers can hamper that scalability.